Users of Windows who have set the Automatic Updates option to "Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them" were surprised to find that the latest WMF patch had overridden these settings and not only installed the patch, but rebooted the machines as well.

Like someone is really going to read all four books, or for that matter even one. Sysadmins for companies maybe, because it's their job to know every feature, but all the people I know who use programs like sendmail simply read one man page and then experiment a little to get the application working. It's not that hard.

Bad example too frankly, since Linux has no shortage of graphical e-mail clients that works very well. Another shortcomming with your argument is that you probably picked a fairly complicated configuration file, although never having used sendmail I really don't know how involved that is. Consider that the /etc/fstab configuration file is very straightforward and after spending a few minutes reading a man page I made changes to it that worked perfectly my very first time even opening the file.

Frankly whether you like configuration files or not is a matter of personal taste, I preffer well designed configuration applications, but I also preffer that settings be saved in configuration files than that they be saved in a regestry.